


Real Deal

by TheSparrow93



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 06:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSparrow93/pseuds/TheSparrow93
Summary: "There were times when Daryl couldn’t remember the last time anything felt truly real. Most of his days seemed to have a layer of fog around them, he knew what motions to go through and what he had to do to survive. It was get up, get some food in his belly, kill walkers, don’t die and repeat.If he really thought about it maybe it was all the way back when he was riding shotgun with Rick. His crappy music making Daryl’s head pound as the idiot just snapped along. That had been a good day, or it would have been had they not run into a certain ninja. Yeah, that day felt very real even now more than seven years later. "





	Real Deal

**Author's Note:**

> I found a prompt list I liked and using a few together this came to be. The prompts are
> 
> “Why are you awake?”  
“Please don’t cry.”  
“I missed you so much.”  
“Can we stay like this forever?”
> 
> All mistakes are my own like always

There were times when Daryl couldn’t remember the last time anything felt truly real. Most of his days seemed to have a layer of fog around them, he knew what motions to go through and what he had to do to survive. It was get up, get some food in his belly, kill walkers, don’t die and repeat. 

If he really thought about it maybe it was all the way back when he was riding shotgun with Rick. His crappy music making Daryl’s head pound as the idiot just snapped along. That had been a good day, or it would have been had they not run into a certain ninja. Yeah, that day felt very real even now more than seven years later. 

A lot of days felt real after that. That clearing full of whistles and blood. The tiny cell and that god damn song. Carl’s pale sweat soaked face while Alexandria was on fire. Hershel Rhee sleeping against his chest. That first morning he woke up to light spilling through a tiny trailer window, rolling over to have bright but sleepy blue eyes staring at him.

The day the bridge blew, the day saw his last brother disappear didn’t feel real at all. Maybe that was really when everything got hazy but as Paul told him over and over that is just how grief is sometimes. Daryl didn’t know how to tell him, tell the man he had loved for over a year that even he didn’t seem real. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for him to leave.

“If you need anything, I’ll be here, Dar.” Paul hadn’t stopped him, had even kissed him at the gate when Daryl left Hilltop barely a month after what happened to Rick. He didn’t even have it in him to stay at Alexandria much longer after RJ was born, he loved the boy but it wasn’t right. He needed space and he found it in the woods. 

Daryl knew what PTSD was, he had been dealing with it for damn near forty years and he kept telling himself that’s what was wrong with him. That’s why the days seemed to run together and stretch on and on but never felt like he had really been there. When Dog came along it helped some, gave him tasks, got him out of his tent and taking care of traps for both game and walkers. 

Daryl knew Paul never considered them broken up, he honestly didn’t either but it wasn’t the same. He would pop into Hilltop from time to time, some things to trade or with a gift for the right people. Paul’s eyes weren’t so bright anymore but he always smiled for him even if it didn’t reach his whole face. Paul would pull Daryl into his bed like the redneck hadn’t been gone for months at a time, sometimes even over a year. 

Daryl was getting by just fine even if he spent most days just going through the motions. Carol dragging his ass out of the woods did seem to lift the grogginess a bit. He almost felt like his old self when as soon as he walked into Hilltop there was something that needed his aid. It was like the old days when he rode out with Paul and Aaron, how had it been years since they had all been together? 

Why had it felt like that blade slide through his own muscle and bone? Daryl hadn’t felt anything so clearly and harshly in years. He doubted he had ever felt pain like this, not with Rick or Beth or Merle. Paul had always felt heavy in his arms, the ninja all lean muscles that nearly took Daryl down whenever he would jump on the older man. Daryl choked on a sob, Aaron helping him shoulder his lovers dead weight not calling him out on the sound. 

The girl was locked up in the cell but he didn’t care about her right then. He knew he was the one who made the call to bring her back but he couldn’t stop running his fingers over Paul’s face. They had put his body in the infirmary while the proper arrangements were made. Aaron hadn’t said a word when Daryl laid down on the small bed, he just took a seat by the door and hung his own head.

Paul’s skin was cooling under his fingertips, his eyelids that use to flutter with dreams now looked so pale and ashen. Paul’s lips often were a bit chapped, something that never bothered Daryl but now they were going blue. Paul was never still unless it was a necessity, he was always swaying or laughing but now he was like a statue at Daryl’s side. 

“Why…” Daryl whispered, his lips pressing into Paul’s hair that had only recently started to get flecks of silver, “Why does this feel so real?”

Daryl wasn’t expecting an answer, even if part of him wished Paul’s lips would open one more time but they didn’t. Why did this have to be the things that snatched him out of the fog that he had been accepting to live in? He wasn’t ready for this, he wasn’t ready to lose Paul. He might have spent most of his time away from him but he knew the ninja would always be there for him to come back to. 

When the casket was lowered into the ground Daryl for the first time wished for the hazy feeling to come back. He had spent years just wanting to feel like he used to but he couldn’t handle it, not now and never again. He honestly wasn’t surprised when it didn’t return, that he had to feel with sharp clarity everything that followed that first stab in the cemetery.

It was spring again before any of them seemed to know it, Daryl had moments where he wished the winter or the Whisperers had stopped him from seeing it. Paul had always loved spring, Daryl knew every meaning of every flower within a hundred mile radius of Hilltop. He never could tell Paul to stop when he repeated them for the millionth time, not with how big he would grin over something as simple as a daisy. 

The nights weren’t as chilly anymore, so Daryl only tugged on a flannel before leaving the trailer. In his mind it was still their trailer even though maybe it hadn’t truly been that in years. The colony was quiet, mostly just the guards moving about on the wall so Daryl was unnoticed as he made his way around. His feet always seemed to take him back to the same place, to the line of headstones within the walls.

Al had been the one to craft the one that Daryl was heading towards and it was lovely, as far as those things go. Daryl wasn’t expecting someone else to already be hunched over at Paul’s grave, hands moving around the dirt in the dark. Daryl blinked as he recognized the persons back even in the dim light from the moon.

“Why are you awake?” Daryl’s voice made them jump and go still, “And what are ya doin’?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise, kinda.” Lydia slowly turned around giving the dirt one last pat.

There at the edge of Paul’s headstone was a small cluster of quickly transplanted flowers, the empty pot that once housed them nearby. She had clearly taken them from the greenhouse and she didn’t know that they would likely die soon. If the roots didn’t die though, they might bloom again, maybe. 

“Why those?” Daryl asked as she stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans. 

“You told me what they mean,” Lydia whispered as she touched her still dirty fingers to the top of the stone, “You told me that he taught you all about flowers and I guess maybe I’m still saying sorry.” 

Daryl couldn’t count how many times she had apologized for everything Alpha and the Whisperers had done. He knew there were moments when he hated her for what happened to Paul but he reminded himself it wasn’t her fault, she was a child after all. 

“You don’t gotta do that,” Daryl sighed moving to sit next to the grave, “But thanks, he’d like ‘em.” 

Daryl reached over and touched the delicate petals, Stargazer Lilies really were a summer plant but he hoped the cooler spring air wouldn’t kill them too quickly. Paul always had a thing about lilies, any kind and she had no way of knowing that but it was still a sweet gesture all the same.

Daryl’s fingertips trailed up the rock, tracing the name there, even the stupid nickname Daryl never admitting to liking. He pressed his palm to the cold stone before letting it drop down to his side with another sigh. 

Lydia suddenly fell to her knees next to him, she smelled like dirt and grass as she wrapped arms around his shoulders, she jerked with the movement he didn’t know he was making, “Please don’t cry.” 

Daryl hadn’t realized he was because for the first time in months, everything felt like it going soft around the edges and far away. It didn’t feel real to be sitting next to Paul’s grave, to be openly and ugily sobbing in front of a teenage girl. 

“Their just so...the flowers, they…” Daryl gasped as Lydia ran her fingers through his hair, “I really do...so much...I mi-”

Lydia pet his bangs back from his face, “_C’mon Dar._”

Daryl jerked at the nickname and his eyes got so blurry with tears everything was black in the moonlight. He couldn’t see Lydia but fingers were still in his hair and her voice was fading, “_Let’s go, it’s time…to..._”

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Daryl’s eyes snapped open at the voice, the fingers in his hair tugging softly before nails scratched at his scalp.

Daryl was terrified to turn his head to look at the person next to him but he didn’t even have to move. Long brown hair whipped into his vision and fell over his face to tickle slightly as laughline accented blue eyes shined down at him, “Paul?”

“Thought I’d lost you for a second there,” Paul grinned and Daryl couldn’t breathe, “I’ve never seen you sleep so deeply or so long before.”

Paul leaned down and kissed his nose before hopping out of bed, clearly unaware that his boyfriend was on the verge of a crisis, “I guess helping to build a bridge is tiring work, especially when you sneak away for a booty call.”

Suddenly Daryl remembered, they had been working on the bridge for weeks now. Daryl hated dealing with the Saviors and needed a break, just for a bit so after they were done for the day he had slipped on his bike and came home. He hadn’t come back for a booty call but as he looked over the long line of Paul’s still naked body in the morning light, well of course they had fucked. They were only human after all. 

Daryl sat up as Paul grabbed them some clean clothes before heading for the shower, crooking his finger beckoningly at the redneck with a smile. Daryl got up without hesitation, following him into the small shower as he got the water set to a comfortable temperature. He made a point to knock his toes against the edge of the sliding door and yep, they smarted pretty good before he closed them into the cubicle.

Daryl wrapped his arms around Paul, burying his face into the nape of his neck as his fingers dug into warm flesh. How had it all been a dream? Somethings maybe had been pretty hazy but losing Paul had felt as real as the man now did in his hands. It was like coming out of the worst drug trip ever and he had never even touched any of that shit. 

“I missed ya so much.” Daryl hadn’t meant to let the words slip out, they had been barely a whisper but Paul heard all the same.

He turned in Daryl’s hold, water slick skin aiding against the larger man’s grip. Paul cupped his face, lips set in a concerned line, “What’s wrong? Another nightmare?”

Daryl had been known to have them but this was worse than that. His nightmares were usually reliving things from his past that he had lived through. This had been different, this was like living in the worst world any mind could come up with. He didn’t want to tell Paul what happened in his dream, with every passing moment all the pain and grief of those imagined years was slipping away.

Daryl nodded and Paul leaned in to kiss his lips softly but Daryl chased his mouth. It had really only been hours but it felt like ages his he had tasted him. Paul happily accepted the kiss, opening his mouth to his desperate tongue, wrapping his arms around Daryl’s neck. The edges of their lips would have some beard burn from the intensity but neither of them cared. 

Daryl knew Rick would be cross at him leaving without letting him know, Part of Daryl really wanted to hurry and see the man because it felt like even longer since he had seen his best friend. He couldn’t tear himself away right then though even as he broke the kiss and pressed his face into Paul’s neck. 

“What do you need from me, love?” Paul kissed his templed and into his hair. 

“Can we stay like this forever?” Daryl mumbled against his skin and Paul chuckled softly. 

“Sure,” Paul nuzzled behind his ear, “Or, at least until the hot water runs out.”

Daryl smiled, kissing Paul’s collarbone as he squeezed him impossibly closer, that wasn’t expect what he meant but it was start, “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, hey Desus, it has been a while! I feel rusty with this ship but I really wanna get back into it.
> 
> Soo, if yall wanna see more Desus from me please send me some prompts. I'm over on tumblr, scramblingminds  
I have a prompt list close to the top of my blog or if there is anything specific you want just hit up in the ole inbox. Hope to hear from y'all soon <3
> 
> Leave a comment, I love talking to y'all!


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